Abdullah I of Jordan

Abdullah I of Jordan (February 1882-20 July 1951) was the King of Jordan from 1921 to 1951, preceding Talal I of Jordan. He was the first ruler of the Hashemite Dynasty of Jordan and a son of Hussein bin Ali and brother of Faisal I of Iraq and Ali of Hejaz.

Biography
Abdullah was the son of Hussein bin Ali, the sharif of Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. He was the brother of Ali of Hejaz and the future King Faisal I of Iraq, a member of the Hashemites. From 1909 to 1914 he was the deputy for Mecca in the Ottoman legislature, having power due to his father's position. In 1916 he aided in the Arab Revolt during World War I, aided by the United Kingdom. Abdullah's assistance came in handy during the struggle against the Ottoman Turks and the German Empire, and as a result, he was given the title of Emir of Transjordan in 1921. Abdullah was elevated to the title of King in 1946, having assisted the British during World War II as well by supplying them with oil and troops.

King Abdullah resisted the Jews when they sought to create a new homeland in Palestine, and on 29 November 1947, he was incensed by the declaration of the United Nations that the Jews would have their own state. King Abdullah aided the Arab Liberation Army by sending troops from his Arab Legion to defend Jerusalem during Operation Nachshon, sending artillery aid. However, on 18 April 1948 he decided to stop sending Arab Legion reinforcements after the Israelis captured Tiberias from the British and Arabs. On 14 May 1948 he committed all of Transjordan to the war when Israel declared independence, beginning the Israeli War of Independence. The Transjordanians aided Syria in pressing on the Jordan River, but in the end, his armies were defeated.

Death
On 15 July 1951, Lebanese Prime Minister Riad Bey e-Solh was assassinated by a member of a Syrian extremist nationalist group that wanted Lebanon to become an integral part of Syria. While attending a memorial service for e-Solh at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on 20 July, Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian. He was accused by Palestinian extremists of wanting to come to an amicable arrangement with Israel. His statement that the Jews turned the sand dunes into paradise and that Jews had rights to their places in the Old ity angered many, and he was murdered. His grandson, the future King Hussein I of Jordan, witnessed his death and refered to it in moving tones forty years later after the assassination of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, whose funeral was held in the same city.